Get free updates via

Sweeping Military Aid Under the Anti-Terrorism Rug

The following article from from the Federation of American Scientists has been reposted here. It is an article
looking at the issue of military aid, post September 11, 2001. This article can be found at its original location,
http://www.fas.org/asmp/library/asm/asm48.html.

Sweeping Military Aid Under the Anti-Terrorism Rug: Security Assistance Post September 11th

During a 6-month commemoration of the
September 11th terrorist attacks, President Bush issued an open
invitation to governments worldwide to apply for American
military aid: "America encourages and expects
governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites
that threaten their own countries and [the] peace of the
world," declared Bush, "if governments need training, or
resources to meet this commitment, America will help.

A Flood of Aid

Bush has made good on that promise. From the
jungles of Basilan, a Philippine island in the Moro Gulf, to the
rugged Pankisi Gorge in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia,
the flood of U.S. military aid released after the September
11th attack is seeping into an increasing number of disparate
locations, washing away aid restrictions and undermining
norms of democracy and human rights. Since September
11th, the administration has requested nearly $3.8 billion in
security assistance and related aid for 67 countries allegedly linked
in some way to the struggle against terrorism. Many of
these countries are of dubious relevance to the "war on
terror," and some are even waging their own campaigns of
terror against their citizens.

Human Rights Concerns

Of the countries currently slated to receive U.S.
military aid, 32 were identified in the State Department's 2000
human rights report as having "poor" human rights records
or worse. Some of the worst offenders are the
administration's new allies in Central Asia. Uzbekistan, for which the
Bush administration has requested over $45 million in Foreign
Military Financing and International Military Education and
Training since September 11th, is among the most
egregious abusers described in State's report. President Karimov's
security forces have been accused of torture, maltreatment
of prisoners leading to deaths in custody, arbitrary arrest
and detention, and harassment of detainees' family members.

While proponents of engagement argue that greater
cooperation with these regimes helps the U.S. government
to promote human rights and democracy, experts note
that many regional leaders are less democratic and respectful
of human rights now than they were in the early 1990s
despite a constant U.S. presence in these states since 1991.
Clearly, the U.S. government has not used the supposed leverage
that comes with engagement effectively, a failure that could have
dire consequences not only for the people of the region, but also
for the international community. "[U]nless the U.S. finds some more
effective means of leveraging these states," warned Carnegie scholar
Martha Brill Olcott at a Senate subcommittee meeting in June, "there
could be some highly undesirable and even violent ... regime changes
throughout the region." The $403 million in security and related
assistance requested for the region since September 11th, to which
very few human rights conditions have been attached, will not solve
this problem, and may make it worse.

Dubious Links to Terrorism

The aid recipients listed above are but a few of the
many states now receiving "counter-terrorism" aid, despite an
often vague or nonexistent connection between the
recipient and the global battle against terrorism. In the FY 2002
Supplemental Appropriations bill alone, the administration
requested over $1.1 billion in security assistance to fight terrorism in
45 countries. The final version includes $387 million in
Foreign Military Financing, or $14.5 million more than Bush's
request.

Among the more visible manifestations of the U.S.
Special Forces to prepare Georgian and Filipino troops for battle,
supposedly against al Qaeda foot soldiers and other
terrorists. Yet in each of these cases, the links to the al
Qaeda network, let alone the actual presence of al Qaeda
soldiers, is dubious.

For example, the State Department is sending $64
million to root out terrorists in the Pankisi Gorge, where
fighters from the war in Chechnya are seeking refuge. Yet
though the U.S. government alleges they have links with al
Qaeda, even the Georgian defense minister has publicly voiced
his doubts. As quoted in the June 3 issue of Defense
Week, General-Lieutenant David Tevzadze asserted, "For me
personally, it is very difficult to believe in that [al Qaeda is in
the Gorge] because to come from Afghanistan to that part
of Georgia, they need to [cross] at least six or seven
countries, including [the] Caspian Sea....No, al Qaeda influence
can't be in the country." More likely, the U.S. government
wants to help shore up the Georgian military's capacity to
protect a planned oil pipeline that will traverse Georgia on its
way from the Caspian Sea to Turkey.

The decision to go after the Abu Sayyaf Group
(ASG), the band of Islamic militants currently being targeted by
U.S. and Filipino soldiers, is equally puzzling. More a criminal
organization than anything else, the ASG has
demonstrated neither the capacity nor the inclination to engage in the
type of transnational terrorist acts that the U.S. public
and policymakers fear most. Nor is it any longer a significant
ally of terrorist groups like al Qaeda that do have global reach.

A key goal of the U.S. military aid to the Philippines
was likely to rescue U.S. missionaries Martin and
Gracia Burnham. But even though the rescue effort is over
(unfortunately with an American and Filipino hostage being
killed), U.S. forces are still planning to start another round of
training scheduled to last from October 2002 through June 2003.

The possibility of reestablishing a presence in the
South China Sea (with its large reserves of oil and natural gas
and strategic shipping routes), which the U.S. lost after
being kicked out of Philippine bases in 1991, probably helps
explain this decision. Military aid to the Philippines began
to rise after a Visiting Forces Agreement signed in 1999
allowed U.S. forces to return for joint exercises. The
U.S. government is now pressuring Manila to sign a Mutual
Logistics Support Agreement, which will make it even
easier for U.S. military forces to maintain a presence on
Philippine territory.

Links to a terrorist threat are perhaps most tenuous
in Nepal, which is set to receive $20 million in Foreign
Military Financing. The aid is intended to help the Nepalese
military fight off a Maoist insurgency despite the fact that the
State Department admits it does "not have direct evidence of
an al-Qaeda presence" in that country. Nor is the group
on State's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. According
to the State Department, in this case and several others the
mere presence of Muslims in the region coupled with
a somewhat unstable government is enough of a
potential threat to justify doling out millions in military aid.

The strained logic used to justify these military aid
requests threatens not only the coherence of the U.S.
campaign against terrorism, but many other U.S. foreign
policy objectives as well, including the advancement of human
rights and regional stability.

Counterinsurgency Quagmires

By offering up aid packages to any state battling
"terrorist parasites," the administration has created a strong
incentive for regimes facing any type of internal opposition to
redefine their insurgencies in terms of the "war on terror." For
example, Georgian officials - who appear to be more
interested in using U.S. assets to win back the breakaway
province of Abkhazia than chasing fighters from the Pankisi
Gorge - are therefore proclaiming the presence of terrorists
in that region, including links to al Qaeda. So far U.S.
officials are resisting pressure to expand the mission, though there
is nothing to prevent U.S.-trained soldiers and
U.S.-supplied weapons from being transferred to Abkhazia in the future.

Bogota has been more successful in redefining its
38-year-old civil war as a fight against "terrorism," and
restrictions on U.S. military aid to Colombia have been
loosened as a result. In March, both houses of the U.S.
Congress passed resolutions inviting the administration to submit
legislation "....to assist the Government of Colombia to
protect its democracy from United States-designated foreign
terrorist organizations ..." (meaning all three armed groups
operating in Colombia, the left wing FARC and ELN and
the right-wing AUC). Congress' goal, which was sanctioned
by the Bush administration and included in the FY2002
emergency supplemental bill, is to allow U.S. military aid to
go beyond counter-narcotics to support counterinsurgency
operations (though even now the dividing line between
the two is quite blurred).

Despite equal treatment of the three "terrorist"
groups in the spending act, the administration has not
demonstrated the same commitment to targeting the paramilitary
AUC, which is responsible for the largest number of recent
civilian deaths, as the two left wing groups. Human rights
groups have documented the Colombian military's consistent
support for the AUC. But this spring, the administration
virtually swept aside conditions placed by Congress on past aid,
certifying that the Colombian military had taken steps to cut
ties with the paramilitaries and bring collaborators to justice
despite the lack of evidence for this claim. By continuing
to fund the Colombian military, the U.S. government is at
best turning a blind eye to, and at worst indirectly aiding,
the activities of the paramilitaries. Some members of
Congress have shown more interest in addressing this issue, however.
The Senate version of the FY2003 foreign aid
appropriations bill includes $5 million to train and equip a Colombian
military unit to apprehend leaders of paramilitary groups.

In any case, the government is years away from
accumulating the power necessary to wrest control of the
countryside from its competitors. For these reasons it is difficult
to imagine that relaxing the restrictions on U.S. weapons
and aid will reduce the violence, and may intensify it as
the military's ability to engage the FARC improves.

Destabilizing Arms Transfers

Not only is the new line of military aid of
questionable utility for protecting the "homeland," but it may also
create security risks for other countries. Despite the steady
escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan, culminating
in the evacuation of U.S. citizens from the subcontinent in
early June 2002, the U.S. has issued a steady stream of licenses
for weapons sales to India. The lineup includes such
potentially destabilizing technology as the AN/TPQ-37 firefinder
weapons locating system, which is seen in Pakistan and India
alike as giving India a decisive tactical advantage in certain
potential future military campaigns against Pakistan. India is also set
to receive ammunition and engines for its light attack jets.
Most recently, the Defense Department notified Congress of
a potential $75 million sale of six C-130 cargo aircraft to
Pakistan, which is also knocking loudly at the door for spare
parts for its F-16s.

Jettisoning Restrictions on Arms and Aid

The relentless assault on military aid restrictions that
began shortly after the September 11th attacks (see ASM
47, "And the Walls Come Tumbling Down...") has
continued unabated. This spring the administration attempted yet
again to win blanket exemptions for aid distributed as part of
the "war on terror" by including language in the FY2002
supplemental appropriations bill that waives most existing
restrictions and reporting requirements. The administration's
second attempt was more successful. Two key Defense
Department funding allocations - $390 million to
reimburse nations providing support to U.S. operations in the war
on terror and $120 million "for certain classified activities"
- can now be delivered "notwithstanding any other provision
of the law." This means there will be none of the normal
restrictions placed on this large sum of military aid.

The provision on "classified activities" is especially
troubling because it permits "projects not otherwise
authorized by law," in other words, covert actions. Not only is
the language in the Supplemental opaque, attempts to get
more information from a defense committee staffer led
nowhere. He refused to answer questions about the intended use
of the funds, the applicability of foreign aid restrictions,
and reporting requirements on the grounds that all of that information
is "classified." In other words, there will be no
public scrutiny of this aid, and that's just fine with Congress.

The Bush administration may also be successful in
its campaign to ease restrictions on military aid and training
to Indonesia despite that country's utter failure to improve
its military's human rights practices. In May, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed that it is "time for [the
restrictions] to be adjusted substantially." If the results of the
Senate Appropriations committee mark up are any
indicator, Mr. Rumsfeld is likely to get his wish. On July 18th,
Senators Stevens (R-Arkansas) and Inouye (D-Hawaii) succeeded
in amending the FY2003 foreign operations appropriations
bill to lift the ban on International Military Education and
Training (IMET) for members of the Indonesian military.
The change still has to survive a full Senate vote, debate in
the House, and possibly a conference committee process,
giving opponents more opportunities to speak out against
it. The FY2002 supplemental included $4 million for
police training and $12 million for anti-terrorism training.
Language in the conference report asserts the State Department
has pledged no training will go to the abusive Mobile
Police Brigade (BRIMOB) or the infamous Kopassus military units.

On a more positive note, the FY2002
supplemental conditions the distribution of FMF to Uzbekistan on a
determination that Uzbek President Karimov's regime is
making "substantial and continuing progress" in implementing
the "Declaration on the Strategic Partnership and
Cooperation Framework" signed by Karimov and Bush on March
12. The Framework commits Uzbekistan to strengthening
civil society, establishing an independent media and a true
multi-party political system, and reforming the judicial system.
Of course, the effectiveness of the agreement depends on
the administration's willingness to honestly assess
Uzbekistan's progress, something it has failed to do with comparable
certification procedures attached to aid to Colombia.

Finally, the administration removed Azerbaijan and
Armenia from the ITAR list of states barred from
receiving weapons, mainly in order to help Azerbaijan defend its oil
in the Caspian Sea from threats from Iran. Sanctions were lifted
despite the fact that the states' dispute over the
contested enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dispute that led to a
hot war in 1989, has not yet been resolved. Sanctions on
the government of Afghanistan were also dropped, and
arms and aid are already beginning to flow.

This latest round of military aid has made one thing
clear: the U.S. military has found a new excuse to extend its
reach around the globe, arming regimes that had previously
been blacklisted for human rights abuses, weapons
proliferation, or brutal conflict. What remains to be seen is how
long Congress and the American public will accept this
formula, especially when they see no concrete results in return.

Blowing the Barn Door Open:

Advanced Weapons Sales to Latin America

On January 30, 2002, the Chilean government
and Lockheed Martin wrapped up five years of negotiations
with the announcement that Chile had agreed to purchase ten
F-16 fighter jets and related equipment for $636 million.
The deal marked the end of a two-decade-old unilateral
U.S. moratorium on the transfer of major weapons systems
to Latin America.

Not four months later, U.S. government officials
declared that they would permit the sale to Brazil of yet
another advanced weapon: the AIM-120 advanced medium
range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM). Consistent with U.S. policy
to refrain from introducing new weapons technology into
a region, the AMRAAMs were off limits to Latin American
militaries until Peru admitted in September 2001 that it
possesses the Russian equivalent, the R-77 medium-range
air-to-air missiles (AA-12 Adder). By making these decisions
the U.S. government showed its disregard for the risk of a
regional arms build-up and the diversion of scarce
resources from pressing social needs that this new military
spending will entail.

This latest chapter in the dispiriting history of
advanced weapons proliferation begins with President Clinton's
August 1997 decision to lift the Carter administration ban on
advanced weapons sales to Latin America. Pressure from
the arms industry - salivating over a market that promised
$7 billion in future combat aircraft orders alone -
undoubtedly influenced Clinton to lift the ban (See ASM 35).
Regardless of the reasons, the administration's decision paved the
way for the spread of advanced American technology, not
only to Chile but to the rest of Latin America as well.

It was not until four years later that a deal actually
appeared imminent, and Santiago quickly came under
heavy fire both at home and abroad, largely because new
fighter jets were considered an unnecessary expense for a
developing nation. Chilean NGOs, legislators and even
the President's own political party condemned the proposed
sale. Several regional powers, Peru being the most vocal,
also called on Chile to forgo the purchase, claiming that the
advanced aircraft would upset the regional military balance.
In September 2001, Peruvian Defense Minister David
Waisman issued a dramatic offer to both refrain from upgrading
its MiG fleet and to give up their controversial Adder missiles
if Chile would agree not to buy the fighters. Chilean
President Lagos summarily dismissed the offer.

Still feeling the pinch of the Argentine economic
meltdown, Chileans continued to condemn the sale right
up until the government reached a deal with Lockheed in late
January. Lockheed's dollar-for-dollar offset package,
which includes a General Electric Plant that will provide
technical assistance and maintenance for the GE motors installed
in the F-16s, undoubtedly made the sale more palatable.

Having inked the Chilean deal, the world's number
one arms exporting nation has turned its attention to Brazil,
where Lockheed is trying to land a $900 million contract for
jet fighters. The U.S. government believes that Brasilia's
distrust of the U.S. as a consistent weapons supplier, its air
force's clear preference for the Russian Su-35, and the
partnership between Embraer - Brazil's leading aerospace industry
and the likely beneficiary of any direct offsets package
- and the French company Dassault puts the Americans at a
distinct disadvantage. For these reasons, the Defense
Department felt the need to preemptively pad the sale with some
high tech extras, taking the unusual step of sending a
congressional notification for 12 F-16s and 48 AMRAAMs to
Congress before they were even selected by Brazil.
Government officials working on the sale claimed that
Lockheed would already be out of the running had the Defense
Department not authorized the inclusion of the AMRAAMs
in the weapons package.

Explaining the Sales

Few arms sales are more deserving of skeptical
inquiry than the two above. Neither Chile nor Brazil face any
serious short-term external security threats, and even
credible theoretical threats are difficult to identify. Brazil has had
to deal with spillover from Colombia's civil war, but
containing errant rebels does not require Beyond Visual Range
(BVR) air-to-air missiles. The same goes for Chile. Chile's
neighbors lack both the intent and the capacity to pose a
serious military threat, according to Jane's Information Group.
Both governments would be better served by investing the
millions set aside for new war planes in combating a more
immediate threat to their peoples' health and well-being:
poverty and the risk of fallout from Argentina's economic crisis.

So why the sales? While U.S. defense industry
lobbying undoubtedly played a key role, several additional factors
facilitated the deals. The first is the Pinochet-era "Copper
Law." While the Chilean air force may have sought to acquire
new planes anyway, the "Copper Law" - which requires that
10% of the revenue from Chile's National Copper
Corporation be used to buy weapons - makes a certain level of
spending on arms a fait accompli and therefore easier to justify.

The second is Peru's mid-1990s defense spending spree.
A mini arms race sparked by border tensions between
Peru and Ecuador prompted former Peruvian President
Alberto Fujimori to purchase 18 MiG-29S/UB, 18 Sukhoi
Su-25A/UB fighters and advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles
in 1997, the missiles now being used to justify hawking its
own AMRAAMs in Latin America. U.S. officials insist that they have
done everything they could (including offering Lima a lot
of money) to convince the Peruvians to "do the right thing"
by giving up their Adders. Since there is no public record of
the negotiations, it is difficult to evaluate this claim.
Regardless, Peru's arms control efforts, which include a proposed
ban on beyond visual range air-to-air missiles in Latin
America, are bearing fruit and may prompt them to sell their
Adders back to Russia. Even if they do, say U.S. officials, "the
toothpaste is out of the tube," and the offer to sell AMRAAMs
to Brazil still stands.

The U.S. policy of playing "follow the leader"
- exercising restraint only until other countries do otherwise
- is a recipe for failure, and for endless proliferation. The
success of the Carter moratorium - in the mid-1990s, per
capita spending on defense in Latin America was the lowest in
the world - is proof positive that a determined U.S. effort
to limit the spread and accumulation of advanced
weaponry can make a big difference. Building on this
accomplishment requires that the current administration find the political
will to lead rather than follow.

The 2002 Foreign Military Training Report: A Mixed Bag

In May, the Bush administration released the 2002
Foreign Military Training Report (FMTR), an annual summary
of most military training programs run by the Departments
of State and Defense. According to the report, U.S.
training programs in FY2001 and FY2002 are likely to involve
108,500 foreign soldiers and civilian officials from 176 countries.

This year's report is a mixed bag. The content and
format is a vast improvement over last year's report. The
administration could do better, however, both in terms of
the content of the report and the training programs themselves.

Reasons for Tempered Celebration

This year's FMTR reverses the past two years' trend
of cutting out additional categories of data from the
declassified section. Restored in this year's report is data on the
training location, the unit or government agency to which the
trainee is assigned, and the dates of the training. This information
is crucial for enforcing key restrictions on military aid such
as the Leahy Law, which bans military aid to specific units
of foreign security forces that commit human rights abuses.

Evidence of a persistent, if sporadic, U.S.
commitment to enforcing its own human rights and nonaggression
norms is also present in this year's report. The FMTR notes that
the U.S. decided to deny most forms of military training to
several regimes - including Rwanda, Burundi,
Zimbabwe, Belarus, Fiji, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda and Cote d'Ivoire -
because they were involved in regional conflicts or
because of their regimes' anti-democratic behavior.

But Before We Uncork the Champagne...

But before we can toast a new era of transparency
and accountability in the history of military training programs,
both the FMTR itself and the training programs it documents
still need to be improved in many ways. The report itself
lacks consistently detailed information about the units to which
the students are assigned, refers to courses that are either
not included or mislabelled in the course descriptions
section, and includes no information about several problematic
training programs implemented by the intelligence
community and Private Military Companies (PMCs). Finally,
many of the regimes denied certain types of military aid were
nonetheless permitted to send students to the
Defense Department's Regional Centers for Security Studies.

The marked increase in the number of Joint
Combined Exercises and Training (JCETs) missions - which are used
to teach deadly warfare skills to foreign troops under the
pretense of training U.S. soldiers - is another area of
concern. JCET activity in the Philippines increased dramatically,
jumping from 343 Filipino participants in FY2000 to 573 in
FY2001, despite the fact that the Armed Forces of the Philippines
continued to be accused by the State Department of
violating international human rights norms. Lastly, the FMTR
reveals that the U.S. continues to turn a blind eye to
human rights abuses committed by recipient countries that
are geostrategically important. Forty-two of the regimes
that received combat training were accused by the State
Department of having "poor" human rights records or
engaging in "serious" abuses.

Whither the FMTR? Current Concerns

Annoyed by the time it takes to compile the report
and convinced that few people bother to use it, some U.S.
officials are trying to scale back or eliminate the report
altogether. Both the House and the Senate have bills that
would limit the scope of the 2003 report. The Senate bill (S.
1803) would eliminate the reporting requirement for NATO
countries and major non-NATO allies unless this information
is requested by ranking members of a relevant
congressional committee. The House version (H.R. 1646) is much
worse. The administration would be entirely relieved of its
responsibility to assemble the report unless a ranking
committee member requests it. Even then, only those countries
specified by the requestor would have to be included.

Even if Congress ends up preserving the report,
the message sent by the House is clear: the training report
is both burdensome and expendable. Such a brazen attack
on so crucial a report should serve as a wake up call for
advocates of transparency and accountability in security
assistance programs; the report's survival could depend on their
willingness to speak out on its behalf.

Weapons Alert!

Armed, Unmanned, and Dangerous

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently
attracted a flurry of attention in Congress and the defense media
- both of which are increasingly attuned to potential
terrorist threats following September 11. "UAV" refers to any
unmanned, non-rocket-propelled aircraft that flies within
the atmosphere, that is, anything from a propeller-driven
drone to a cruise missile. The major fear of U.S. policymakers
is that terrorists or rogue states might use UAVs as a
delivery system for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Iraq,
for example, is converting L-29 trainers into WMD-capable
UAVs, according to Senate testimony by Vann Van Diepen,
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation.

Managing this risk will not be easy. Since February,
three meetings of the Senate Government Affairs Committee
have stressed that low costs and the wide variety of
acquisition paths open to purchasers (most UAV technology has
legitimate civilian and commercial applications) make UAVs an
attractive weapon for terrorists and hostile states.

One way to deal with the threat is through the
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a set of voluntary
multilateral export control guidelines designed to prevent the
proliferation of missiles that can carry WMD. But the
expandable design of most UAVs combined with the
commercial availability of much of their technology mean that an
MTCR-compliant UAV could easily be upgraded using civilian
technologies to make it capable of WMD delivery. What's
more, the GAO reported in October 2001(GAO-02-120) that
many MTCR items are subject to "unclear jurisdiction" in the
U.S. arms export control system, meaning they could easily
fall through the system's cracks.

Of course, the MTCR cannot be effective if its
participants choose to ignore it. This spring, the Bush
administration quietly developed a new UAV export policy that
would make it easier to sell UAVs capable of delivering WMD.
In accordance with MTCR rules, UAVs that fall under Category
I of the MTCR (capable of carrying 500 kilograms at
least 300 kilometers) had been subject to an unconditional
strong presumption of denial, but under the new policy they
will be granted a case-by-case review. Why the President
would eschew a growing consensus of alarmed experts is
unclear. Could he be responding to pressure from an industry
increasingly keen on exporting UAVs for commercial and
defense purposes? In any case, it is certain that dealing with
the threat of UAV proliferation will require both reform of
the MTCR's ability to deal with dual-use technologies like
UAVs and a stricter adherence by the U.S. and other members
to the spirit as well as the letter of the MTCR.

Stingers, Stingers Everywhere

Apparently U.S. officials believe that Islamic militants
are capable of achieving what the CIA has failed to do for
the past decade: track down Stinger missiles missing since
they were distributed to the Afghan Mujahideen and Angolan
rebels in the 1980s and bring them back to the United States.
One problem - the militants would use them to shoot
commercial airliners out of the sky.

In mid-May, U.S. officials issued an intelligence alert
to the airlines and law enforcement warning them of the
threat posed by Russian made SA-7 surface-to-air missiles and
their U.S. equivalents. The warning was circulated after a
discarded SA-7 launcher was found outside a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia.

The alert is yet another reminder of how weapons
distributed to "friends" today can haunt us for years, if
not decades, afterwards. Distributed by Reagan's secret
agents with about as much discretion as a drunk host passing
out beers at a summer barbeque, the Stingers have since
found their way into the arsenals of a truly unsavory lot: the
Chechen Rebels, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, the Tamil
Tigers (Sri Lanka), and - the kicker - Osama bin Laden, who,
according to reports cited in Jane's Intelligence Review,
handed out the deadly missiles to his personal bodyguards.
Considering that Stingers have a shelf life of up to 22 years,
there's no telling whose backyard they might show up in next.

New Name Means BISness as Usual at Commerce

The Commerce Department recently changed the
name of the office in charge of controlling dual-use exports
(goods with both civilian and military use). Previously called
the Bureau of Export Administration, the office now has a
more telling title, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). In
addition to making a catchy pun, the new name may reflect the
relative weight the Department places on export
promotion versus national security protection: industry's needs
are served first, U.S. security comes second.

The new name also underscores an old problem
with dual-use controls at Commerce _ the fox is guarding
the henhouse. The same office that is supposed to control
exports is also promoting them. The Bureau's press
release on the name change boasts that it "spearheads the
Department of Commerce's efforts in defense trade advocacy
and monitors the health of the U.S. defense-industrial base."

Export promotion is mainly done through BIS's
Defense Trade Advocacy Program, which according to their web
site, can "generate high-level, government-to-government
advocacy on behalf of U.S. firms," helping them to "succeed
in today's highly competitive global defense market." The
site proudly states that the program has "successfully
supported approximately $22 billion in U.S. exports since 1994."
No similar gloating is done about preventing dangerous exports.

Israeli (Ab)use of U.S. Weapons

Israel's military campaign against Palestinian
extremists took another ugly turn on July 23rd when Israeli
F-16s dropped a 2000 lb bomb on an apartment complex
housing Salah Shehada, the leader of the military wing of
Hamas. The bomb leveled three apartment buildings, killed 15
people (including 9 children), and injured many dozens more.
Adding to a chorus of international criticism, President Bush
called the attack "heavy handed" and announced that the
State Department would investigate.

The Bush administration's decision to look into the
incident marks a small improvement over past U.S. responses
to Israeli excesses. By repeatedly failing to investigate Israeli
use of U.S. arms in the past, the U.S. government has been
undermining its own export laws. The Arms Export
Control Act prohibits weapons sales for purposes other than
internal security, legitimate self-defense and use in regional
and collective arrangements that are consistent with the UN
Charter. Suspected breaches of this law are to be
reported to Congress and, if the President determines that a
violation has occurred, legislators or the President can then
block weapons sales to offending country.

Critics of sanctions against Israel emphasize the
volatility of the region, asserting that a perceived loss of U.S.
support could embolden Israel's enemies and lead to more
violence. This argument downplays the damage done by
Washington's unconditional support for Israel, which encourages the
Israeli government to continue its counterproductive military
actions and damages U.S. credibility as a mediator in the conflict.
In addition, allowing Israel to violate U.S. export laws
with impunity sends a message to Israel and other arms
importers that when geostrategic questions are at play, U.S. laws
can be broken. Finally, under international law, by providing
the weapons used to violate humanitarian law (in this case
the deliberate targeting of a civilian site), the U.S.
government shares the responsibility for the violation.

Arms Hawking in Korea

Boeing's foreign competitors have been puzzling
over what went wrong with the recent South Korean fighter
aircraft sale. The winning F-15K aircraft's closest
competitor, Dassault's Rafale, beat out the F-15 in the initial
evaluation stage, which compared the competing aircraft in terms
of life-cycle costs, operational capabilities, compatibility with
existing weapons systems, and technology transfers. Yet
Boeing still managed to clinch this $3.2 billion sale. Since the
initial reports naming Boeing as the winner began to surface,
the deal has attracted vociferous criticism by foreign arms
manufacturers for unfair business practices and heavy-handed
U.S. government influence over the outcome of the sale.

Their allegations were not without substance. In
November 2001, Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) was quoted in the
St. Louis Dispatch as warning the Koreans
that if they "make the wrong decision...very unfortunate
things could happen" to the relationship between the U.S.
and Korea. The Senator raised more eyebrows in January
by meeting with South Korea's Defense Minister. Saint
Louis, Missouri is the home of Boeing's F-15K production line.

Two months later, fury over the competition
erupted again when a Korean air force colonel involved in the
selection process accused his superiors of exerting pressure
on the air force evaluation team to recommend Boeing.
According to a report in the Seoul Yonhap, a senior
Korean defense official warned the colonel that failure to select
Boeing could result in the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the
Korean Peninsula.

Both the Russians and the French publicly expressed
anger over U.S. tactics used to secure the tender and,
according to a June 6 article in the Korean
Times, Dassault claims it will cease to bid on future South Korean contracts.

Whispers of scandal aside, this sale would appear to
be reason for celebration in the U.S., especially for those
employed by aerospace giant, Boeing. The real story is not
so rosy, however. The deal included offset and
coproduction agreements ensuring that the sale will generate over
30,000 new jobs in South Korea, while only protecting 1,000
jobs for Boeing workers in the U.S.

Federation of American Scientists Arms Sales Monitoring Project

Founded in 1945, the Federation of American
Scientists is a public interest organization of natural and
social scientists and engineers dedicated to the responsible
use of science and technology. Since 1991, the Arms Sales
Monitoring Project at FAS has worked for a reduction in
global weapons production and trade.

Tamar Gabelnick, Director of the project, edited
this newsletter with contributions by Research Associate
Matt Schroeder and interns Michelle Lucey-Roper and
Chris Snyder. You may reproduce and cite this publication freely.

General Fair Use Notice

This reposted page may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Globalissues.org is making this article available in efforts to advance the understanding of the workings, impact and direction of various global issues. I believe that this constitutes a “fair use” of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond “fair use,” you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.